Resolution On The Oakland "Ebonics" Issue Unanimously Adopted at the Annual Meeting of the Linguistic Society of America Chicago, Illinois January 3, l997
Whereas there has been a great deal of discussion in the media and among the American public about the l8 December l996 decision of the Oakland School Board to recognize the language variety spoken by many African American students and to take it into account in teaching Standard English, the Linguistic Society of America, as a society of scholars engaged in the scientific study of language, hereby resolves to make it known that:
The variety known as "Ebonics," "African American Vernacular English" (AAVE), and "Vernacular Black English" and by other names is systematic and rule-governed like all natural speech varieties. In fact, all human linguistic systems -- spoken, signed, and written -- are fundamentally regular. The systematic and expressive nature of the grammar and pronunciation patterns of the African American vernacular has been established by numerous scientific studies over the past thirty years. Characterizations of Ebonics as "slang," "mutant," "lazy," "defective," "ungrammatical," or "broken English" are incorrect and demeaning.
The distinction between "languages" and "dialects" is usually made more on social and political grounds than on purely linguistic ones. For example, different varieties of Chinese are popularly regarded as "dialects," though their speakers cannot understand each other, but speakers of Swedish and Norwegian, which are regarded as separate "languages," generally understand each other. What is important from a linguistic and educational point of view is not whether AAVE is called a "language" or a "dialect" but rather that its systematicity be recognized.
As affirmed in the LSA Statement of Language Rights (June l996), there are individual and group benefits to maintaining vernacular speech varieties and there are scientific and human advantages to linguistic diversity. For those living in the United States there are also benefits in acquiring Standard English and resources should be made available to all who aspire to mastery of Standard English. The Oakland School Board's commitment to helping students master Standard English is commendable.
There is evidence from Sweden, the US, and other countries that speakers of other varieties can be aided in their learning of the standard variety by pedagogical approaches which recognize the legitimacy of the other varieties of a language. From this perspective, the Oakland School Board's decision to recognize the vernacular of African American students in teaching them Standard English is linguistically and pedagogically sound.
Resolution Links
Selected references (books only)
Baratz, Joan C., and Roger W. Shuy, eds. 1969.
Teaching Black Children to Read.
Washington, DC: Center for Applied Linguistics.
Baugh, John. 1983.
Black street speech: Its History, Structure and Survival.
Austin: University of Texas Press.
Bloome, David, and J. Lemke, eds. 1995.
Special Issue: Africanized English and Education.
Linguistics and Education 7.
Burling, Robbins. 1973.
English in Black and White.
New York: Holt.
Butters, Ron. 1989.
The Death of Black English: Convergence and Divergence in American English.
Frankfurt: Peter Lang.
Dandy, Evelyn. 1991.
Black Communications: Breaking Down the Barriers.
Chicago: African American Images.
DeStephano, Johanna 1973, ed.
Language, Society and Education: A Profile of Black English.
Worthington, OH: Charles A. Jones.
Dillard, J. L. 1972.
Black English: Its History and Usage in the United States.
New York: Random House.
Fasold, Ralph W., and Roger W. Shuy, eds. 1970.
Teaching Standard English in the Inner City.
Washington, DC: Center for Applied Linguistics.
Gadsden, V. and D. Wagner, eds. 1995.
Literacy among African American Youth.
Creskill, NJ: Hampton Press.
Jones, Regina, ed. 1996.
Handbook of Tests and Measurements.
Hampton, VA; Cobbs.
Kochman, Thomas. 1981.
Black and White Styles in Conflict.
NY: Holt Rinehart.
Kochman, Thomas, ed. 1972.
Rappin' and Stylin' Out.
Urbana: University of Illinois Press.
Labov, William 1972.
Language in the Inner City: Studies in the Black English Vernacular.
Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Lippi-Green, Rosina. 1997.
English with an Accent.
London: Routledge.
Mufwene, Salikoko S., John R. Rickford, Guy Bailey and John Baugh, eds. 1998.
African American English.
London: Routledge.
Rickford, John R., and Lisa Green. 1999.
African American Vernacular English.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Shuy, Roger W., ed. 1965 .
Social Dialects and Language Learning.
Champaign, Ill., National Council of Teachers of English.
Simpkins, G., G. Holt, and C. Simpkins. 1977.
Bridge: A Cross-Cultural Reading Program.
Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
Smith, Ernie A. 1994.
The Historical Development of African American Language.
Los Angeles: Watts College Press.
Smitherman, Geneva. 1986.
Talkin and Testifyin: The Language of Black America.
Detroit: Wayne State University Press.
_____ 1994
Black Talk: Words and Phrases from the Hood to the Amen Corner.
Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
_____, ed. 1981.
Black English and the Education of Black Children and Youth.
Detroit: Center for Black Studies, Wayne State University Press.
Taylor, Hanni U. 1989.
Standard English, Black English, and Bidialectalism: A Controversy.
NY: Peter Lang.
Williams, Robert L. 1975
Ebonics: The True Language of Black Folks.
St Louis: Institute of Black Studies.
Wolfram, Walt 1969.
A Linguistic Description of Detroit Negro Speech.
Washington, DC: Center for Applied Linguistics.
_____ 1991.
Dialects and American English.
Englewood Cliffs, NJ; Prentice Hall and Center for Applied Linguistics.
Wolfram, Walter A., Carolyn Temple Adger, and Donna Christian 1999.
Dialects in Schools and Communities.
Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Wolfram, Walter A., and Donna Christian 1989.
Dialects and Education: Issues and Answers.
Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Wolfram, Walter A. and Nona Clarke, eds. 1971.
Black-White Speech Relationships.
Washington: Center for Applied Linguistics.
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Talking New York
It’s Not Just the Accent That Makes Us Different Well-known author and sociolinguist Deborah Tannen shows what happens to couples when he’s from New York and she ain’t. All too often, linguistic roles are reversed — and she’s the one who complains that her partner just won’t shut up! It’s just the tip of the linguistic iceberg. (The research cited in this essay was first published in 1990.)
Allison broke up with Manny at the end of a long car ride back from the Adirondacks to Manhattan. He had driven her crazy by talking the entire trip. After giving his assessment of all the people they had met, lecturing about the local flora and fauna, and listing options for their next vacation, he provided a running commentary on what he saw out the window and read road signs out loud. Hadn’t Manny heard of the strong, silent type? To Allison, his monologue underscored how different they were.
This apportionment of talk and silence was the reverse of the pattern I’ve discovered in most places in America. Generally, it’s women who complain that the men in their lives don’t talk to them, and men who gripe that the women they live with talk too much and insist on conversation when they want to read the newspaper or watch television. Why are Allison and Manny so different? You guessed it: He’s a New Yorker and she’s from Minnesota.
Native New Yorkers sometimes feel like a unique species
Native New Yorkers (I know, because I’m one) sometimes feel like a unique species. In this way, we are: Gender differences in conversational style are exaggerated or reversed if one partner is from New York and the other is not. If the woman is from New York and the man isn’t, the widespread tendency for the woman to talk at home while the man clams up increases. If he is from New York and she isn’t—as with Allison and Manny—the opposite can happen.
Since the publication of my new book, You Just Don’t Understand: Women and Men in Conversation, most of the people who have written to me, or called in to talk shows I’m on, have told me that their relationships fit the pattern I describe: The woman comes home and tells all to a man who has nothing to say. But every now and then I get a call—as I did on Donahue recently—from a woman who complains that her husband talks constantly and doesn’t let her get a word in edgewise, or a man who complains that his wife never talks. A male television-talk-show host asked me, “Why do women leave the room and refuse to discuss a problem when you’re trying to talk it out?” —just the question countless women ask me about men. In these exceptional cases, it almost always turns out that the man is from New York, and the woman isn’t.
We look to a primary relationship as a haven in a hostile world; we expect our partner to be our best friend. But if our primary relationship is with a person of the other gender, we’re likely to have different assumptions about what it means to be best friends. Women assume that the essence of friendship is talk: a free-wheeling exchange of thoughts and feelings, daily experiences and impressions. In contrast, many men feel it means doing things together, or simply being together; talk isn’t required. In fact, they feel that one of the benefits of being close is not having to talk, since talk is something you have to do to prove yourself in the outside world. But New Yorkers—both men and women—are often big talkers, at home as well as outside. What’s more, conversational style differences between New Yorkers and others make it hard for a non-New Yorker to get into a New York conversation.
Here’s how it works: Allison herself was partly responsible for Manny’s verbal onslaught. He believes that talk is a sign of goodwill in a friendly situation and silence is evidence of a lack of rapport. So it was her silence that made him resort to scenery and road signs to fill the conversational space. But Manny wasn’t blameless. Each indication that he intended to keep talking reinforced Allison’s determination not to talk in order to demonstrate the behavior she considered appropriate: companionable silence.
Conversational-style differences are often what attract New Yorkers and non-New Yorkers to each other
As it happens, conversational-style differences that cause grief in a long-term relationship are often what attract New Yorkers and non-New Yorkers to each other in the first place. It was his talkativeness that drew Allison to Manny. She thought of it as openness, a willingness to do his share of relating. And Manny was drawn to Allison precisely because of her tendency to listen rather than talk, which he saw as calm reserve, as being “centered.” But the conversational-style differences that bring New Yorkers and non-New Yorkers together can eventually drive them apart.
Another bone of contention is contentiousness. Men are, by and large, more comfortable with opposition and argument than women, who are inclined to support and agree with each other. Many women resent it if their partners disagree with them in public or correct them on points of fact. If a woman tells another woman about a problem with her boss, her friend is likely to join her in criticizing the boss.
But if a woman comes home and tells her male partner the same story, he may explain the boss’s point of view. She thinks he’s being disloyal; he thinks he’s being helpful. Indeed, men often take oppositional stances when they feel friendly, by arguing about sports and politics, for example, or just razzing and teasing each other.
In New York, friendly contentiousness is common among women and men
In New York, however, friendly contentiousness is common among women as well as men. A New Englander who arrived in New York and took a cab from the train station was immediately offended by a cabdriver who gruffly took him to task for slamming the cab door. But a New Yorker told me she loves nothing better than to fly into La Guardia and have a porter chide her for having heavy suitcases or to go to a delicatessen and have a waiter tell her she ordered the wrong thing. Since New Yorkers assume a no-holds-barred directness with intimates, we regard offhand brusqueness (as distinguished from downright nastiness) from strangers or acquaintances as a sign of friendliness: They are treating us like family.
This can result in a tendency to disagree and question, rather than agree and support, in conversation with friends. And contentiousness can get New York women into trouble, because women are expected to be agreeable. For example, women often enact a routine I call “trouble talk”: One woman tells a trouble, and the other offers a matching one. A woman from Massachusetts complained that a woman friend from New York was always putting her down. It turned out that when she mentioned a problem, her friend often said, “That’s not a problem for me.” This violates the rules of troubles talk, which require that if you can’t say, “I’m the same way,” you should at least say, “I know how you feel.” Refusing to admit to being the same seems to imply thinking you’re better.
Another way that many New York women differ from women at large has to do with directness. Most women don’t give orders in the form of direct demands; instead, they suggest and hint. This works fine if everyone understands the system. Jane asks, “Shall we go to the movies tonight?” and Susan answers, “I’m tired, but if you want, we can go.” Jane then lets Susan off the hook: “If you’re tired, we’ll go another time.” Susan gets her way without demanding it, and Jane feels she chose not to go. But a man might take Susan’s statement literally: You said you’d go, so let’s put on our coats.
New Yorkers of both genders assume directness is appropriate when two people are close
New Yorkers of both genders assume directness is appropriate when two people are close. So women and men may reverse roles if the woman is from New York and the man’s family is from a culture that prefers indirectness, such as Greek or Japanese. This is what happened when a Greek man accused his New York-bred wide of selfishness because she never did what he wanted. He would send out hints about his preferences, which she’d miss because she assumed that married people tell each other directly what’s on their minds. For instance, whenever they were in a department store, he would suggest they visit the furniture department. He was certain she knew he wanted to buy new furniture, yet she refused to do so; though she had wondered why he was so interested in furniture, she was genuinely surprised to learn he wanted to buy some, since he hadn’t said so. This man also picked up signals his wife hadn’t sent out. For example, when she asked if he wanted to go to a party, he assumed she wanted to go—otherwise, why would she ask? He agreed to go for her sake and was angry and incredulous when she later said she’d gone because he’d wanted to.
There’s also a discrepancy between New York women and their non-New York sisters in terms of raising topics. When I studied conversations between Louisiana children and their best friends, which had been videotaped by psychologist Bruce Dorval of Long Island University, I found that the girls’ centered on one girl’s problems; the conversations between boys jumped from topic to topic. There was one pair of boys who did discuss problems, but each talked about his own problem and dismissed the other’s. Yet the boys didn’t seem to mind. For them, dismissing the other’s problem was a way of implying, “You shouldn’t feel bad because your problems aren’t so bad.” When it comes to switching subjects, New York women resemble these Louisiana boys more than the girls. New Yorkers trust others to get back to a topic if they have more to say about it. So New York women may be seen as self-centered by non-New Yorkers. This is just what women say of men who start following their own agenda rather than exploring and pursuing the topics raised by them.
What’s the logic behind these New York conversational strategies? The style can be understood as “high involvement.” You show you’re a good person by demonstrating enthusiastic participation in the conversation. You offer talk as a gift. You convert minor commonplace experiences into long, dramatic stories full of acted-out dialogue and exaggerated facial expressions. You talk along when you listen, offering little (or big) expressions of interest or disbelief or even mini-stories showing your understanding through shared experience. You toss out new topics to forestall any lulls. All this conversational exuberance is intensified by loud volume and fast pacing, to reinforce the enthusiasm and participation. The risk of offending by not talking is deemed greater than the risk of offending by talking too much.
High-involvement seems intrusive to those who have “high-considerateness” styles
Unbeknownst to well-intentioned New Yorkers, high-involvement strategies seem intrusive to those who have what I call “high-considerateness” styles. They’re showing they are good people not by demonstrating eager involvement, but by not imposing. With volume held in check, they leave nice long pauses to make sure other speakers are finished before they start to talk. They are circumspect in dealing out talk, often waiting to be asked to speak, to make sure that others want to hear what they have to say. They state the points of their stories rather than acting them out, and the points are less likely to be personal. This leaves New Yorkers wondering whether the story has a point at all. Non-New Yorkers also make a lot less noise when they listen, causing New Yorkers to wonder if they’ve fallen asleep. They make sure a topic is exhausted before introducing a new one—a strategy that can exhaust a New Yorker who thinks the topic has been talked to death—and they would rather risk offense by saying too little than too much.
These differences wreak havoc in close relationships when only one partner is from New York. The New York-bred partner ends up doing all the talking and accuses the other of not holding up his or her end of the conversation. The non-New York partner ends up seething: “You only want to hear yourself talk; you’re not interested in me.” Both attribute their dissatisfaction not to differences in conversational style, but to the other’s personality flaws and bad intentions.
So much for talk in close relationships. What of the time spent talking “in public”—in social situations with people we know less well, and at work? Most women use language to create connection and intimacy, so they are more comfortable talking in private, with people they feel close to. Men use language to negotiate status in a group. It goes back to the way boys and girls learn to use language growing up. In a study of working-class black children in Philadelphia, anthropologist Marjorie Harness Goodwin has found that boys tend to play outside, in hierarchical groups. High-status boys give orders, and low-status boys get pushed around, so boys learn to negotiate status by displaying their abilities and accomplishments. But girls’ groups operate on more egalitarian principles; Goodwin observed girls ostracizing one girl who dressed better than her friends and another who did “too” well in school. So girls tend to avoid boasting or appearing better than others.
These gender differences put women at a disadvantage in public situations. At a meeting, say, men are more likely than women to jump in, hold forth, and state their opinions as fact. The high-involvement style of New York men reinforces this advantage by making them even more comfortable speaking up and speaking out, though if they go too far, they may be considered abrasive by non-New Yorkers. High-involvement style also gives New York-bred women an advantage in this regard, but the advantage is not as clear-cut.
Whereas the New York man is considered assertive, the New York woman is seen as aggressive
The tendency to speak up at meetings, to be comfortable with argument and conflict, to put oneself forward and make one’s accomplishment known, may make New York women more forceful in positions of authority. But all women are judged by the same expectations. Whereas New York style reinforces a man’s masculinity as well as his authority, it may reinforce a woman’s authority but compromise her femininity in the eyes of non-New Yorkers. She may be respected and taken seriously, but she may also be disliked. Whereas the New York man is considered assertive, the New York woman is seen as aggressive. Whereas he is a take- charge person, she is called—as Geraldine Ferraro was by Barbara Bush—the word that “rhymes with rich.”
The obvious question is “Why are New Yorkers different?” Many people suggest that because there are so many of us in so little space, we have to get closer and move faster. But it is just as logical to say that because there are so many of us, we have to be extra considerate of one another. Tokyo is quite crowded, but Japanese style is as high-considerate as you can get: maximally indirect and talk-aversive. Whereas many New Yorkers will exchange fleeting remarks with just about anyone within hearing distance, an American living in Japan was hurt when his neighbor walked within inches of his open front door without showing any sign of having noticed him. The American was told that this was the Japanese way of not imposing in an overcrowded setting. So crowding in itself doesn’t account for New York style. Instead, I believe that our way of talking results from the conversational styles of cultures that settled in large numbers in New York: East European and Mediterranean. More recently arrived immigrants, such as Hispanics, Africans, and West Indians, fit right in. Class plays a role, too. The fast-paced, stand-close style of ethnic New Yorkers seems as alien to patrician New Yorkers as it does to Americans from other parts of the country.
Because of these cultural influences, moreover, not all New Yorkers have the same conversational style. For example, an Irish New Yorker may talk as quickly and exuberantly as a Jewish one but about less personal topics. Even two New York Jews may differ. One woman grumbled that her husband doesn’t believe she can tell a story by herself. When they have guests, and she begins to talk, he takes over. I explained that he probably isn’t trying to tell the story for her but with her. He expects them to toss the narrative ball back and forth, speaking on the same team. By participating in her story, he’s showing his interest and his caring, not trying to take over. The reason he ends up telling her story is that she withdraws, leaving him to carry the ball. To understand why this happened, I asked about their backgrounds. “We have the same background,” she said.” “We’re both from New York, and we’re both Jewish.” But I wasn’t licked. “Is he East European Jewish, and are you German Jewish?” Her mouth fell open: “Yes.” New York Jews of German background often show the northern European influence of high considerateness, whereas East European Jews share high-involvement style with other East Europeans.
So what’s a person to do? When your partner is driving you mad, before accusing him or her of a flawed character or evil motives—or maybe right afterward—stop and ask yourself if the culprit might be different conversational styles. If only one of you is a native New Yorker, chances are especially great that the answer will be yes. With the burden of blame lifted, you can start to make small adjustments. Take heart: Allison and Manny got back together and lived happily ever after. (Well, as happily as any of us.) And on long car rides, they’re both busy trying to quiet their children, who overwhelm Allison’s silence and Manny’s talk with their noisy arguments.
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Ebony + Phonics
Comprehending Ebonics Immigrant groups from every part of the world have routinely brought their languages to the United States, save one: African Americans. John Baugh explains how the African slave trade impacted this unique variety of American, and how the term "Ebonics" came into being.
Ebonics is greatly misunderstood, largely because of how it gained global attention during a racially charged education controversy in Oakland, California. On Dec. 18, 1996, the Oakland School Board passed a resolution declaring Ebonics to be the language of 28,000 African-American students within that school district. Few people had ever heard of the term Ebonics prior to the passage of that resolution, to say nothing of how it was created or originally defined.
Dr. Robert Williams, an African-American social psychologist, coined the term Ebonics in 1973. His goal was to combine the words “ebony” with “phonics” to refer to “black sounds.”Williams and several other African-American social scientists had gathered that year at a conference sponsored by the National Institutes of Health to discuss the psychological development of black children. Williams and his associates had been displeased with the term Black English and began to ponder the alternatives.
Williams recounted the creation of Ebonics as follows:
We need to define what we speak. We need to give a clear definition to our language. …We know that ebony means black and that phonics refers to speech sounds or the science of sounds. Thus, we are really talking about the science of black speech sounds or language. (Williams, 1997a)
Although the preceding statement offers an early, vague conception of Ebonics, the term was formally defined in 1975 when Williams published an edited volume, Ebonics: The True Language of Black Folks. In it, he classified Ebonics as the
…linguistic and paralinguistic features which on a concentric continuum represent the communicative competence of the West African, Caribbean, and United States slave descendant of African origin. (Williams, 1975)
The original Ebonics construct was intended to reflect the multinational linguistic results of the African slave trade. Prior to its coining, no single term described the linguistic consequences of this period in history. The vast majority of pertinent studies had all been in the United States, and terminology varied from year to year. “Nonstandard Negro English” was common during the 1960s, succeeded by “Black English” or “Black English Vernacular” (BEV) during the 1970’s and most of the 1980’s. Eventually the term African American Vernacular English (AAVE) was introduced as yet another synonym for the speech of most blacks in America. However — unlike Ebonics — “Black English” or “AAVE” never explicitly referred to the linguistic legacy of the African slave trade beyond the United States.
The practices underlying Williams' definition of Ebonics were indeed devastating. But even after slavery was abolished in the U.S., a recurrent combination of racial segregation and inferior educational opportunities prevented many African Americans from adopting speech patterns associated with Americans of European ancestry. As a result, generations of white citizens maligned or mocked speakers of AAVE, casting doubt on their intelligence and making their distinctive speaking patterns the object of racist ridicule.
The Oakland School Board did not expect the hostility that followed their ill-advised linguistic assertion that Ebonics was the authentic language of their African-American students. Facing a scornful public, they argued that their ultimate objective was to recognize Ebonics as a means to increase standard English proficiency among black students, many of whom were in dire need of culturally relevant linguistic enrichment.
Competing Definitions
Very few professional linguists beyond those who were familiar with the BEV/AAVE research knew of Ebonics or how it was originally defined. A series of coincidences triggered a transformation in the definition of Ebonics, from its original international orientation to multiple and sometimes contradictory definitions, including the following:
Williams’ original (1975) international definition, extending the linguistic consequences of the African slave trade from West Africa to all countries where African slave descendants now reside.
Ebonics is the equivalent of Black English and is considered to be a dialect of English (Tolliver-Weddington 1979).
Ebonics is the antonym of Black English and is considered to be a language other than English (Smith 1997).
Ebonics refers to language among all people of African descent throughout the African Diaspora (Blackshire-Belay 1996).
The Oakland School board began by adopting Smith’s non-English definition for Ebonics, but they modified their position in January 1997, more closely hewing to Tolliver-Weddington’s assertion that Ebonics is a dialect of English. Indeed, the best available evidence regarding Ebonics usage in the United States (i.e. AAVE) is that it is, undoubtedly, a dialect of English — albeit a very distinctive dialect born of the African slave trade (Williams 1975).
The 1997 resolution states Ebonics is a dialect of English
Scholars who gathered at the 1997 annual meeting of the Linguistic Society of America attempted to guide this discussion by passing a resolution that indirectly asserted the prevailing linguistic opinion — namely, that Ebonics (viewed in the American context) is without question a dialect of English. By this thinking, Ebonics in Brazil is a dialect of Portuguese, and Ebonics in Haiti would be a dialect of French.
In the heat of that politicized moment, linguists attempted not only to redefine Ebonics, but also to illustrate some of the problems that can arise when one considers how languages in different parts of the world are actually defined. They stated:
That the variety known as “Ebonics,” “African American Vernacular English” (AAVE), “Vernacular Black English” and by other names is systematic and rule-governed like all natural speech varieties.
And:
The distinction between “languages” and “dialects” is usually made more on social and political grounds than on purely linguistic ones. For example, different varieties of Chinese are popularly regarded as “dialects,” though their speakers cannot understand each other. But speakers of Swedish and Norwegian, which are regarded as separate “languages,” generally understand each other. What is important from a linguistic and educational point of view is not whether AAVE is called a “language” or a dialect” but rather that its systematicity be recognized.
When viewed from a purely scientific perspective, the relative linguistic or educational value of Ebonics depends upon its precise definition, including the specific criteria by which we come to identify the “systematicity” of a language (or dialect) and those who nurture it through their daily speech. Williams, a social scientist, explicitly pinpointed “African slave ancestry” as the common thread connecting all Ebonics speech communities. From a purely linguistic perspective, linguistic speech communities have never been defined based upon the race of their speakers. However, because all African slaves were selected, at least in part, because of their shared physical characteristics, Ebonics forces scholars, educators, policy makers and others to ponder the special linguistic circumstances of African slave descendants.
Colonization, wars, a growing world economy and other factors of capricious human intervention have altered the global linguistic map in defiance of simplistic racial classifications. Speakers of Chinese, French, English, Ibo and Italian (to name just a few) illustrate that language boundaries and racial groupings rarely coincide. Ironically, attempts to classify Ebonics overtly combine racial considerations (resulting from the African slave trade) with linguistic considerations regarding precise distinctions between “a language” and “a dialect.”
Effects on Education
Many educational policies and services are determined based on a child’s native language. Students who speak languages other than English may be eligible for special programs to help advance their English fluency. Oakland educators realized correctly that many of their African-American students were at a severe educational disadvantage because they lacked adequate proficiency in standard English. Rather than argue that AAVE speakers were in greater need of standard English fluency, however, Oakland educators argued that black students were linguistically akin to others for whom English is not native.
Depending upon which definition of Ebonics one chooses, ensuing policy and economic decisions can have profound social, educational, legal and political consequences. Imagine the budgetary impact of expanding bilingual education programs to include African Americans; clearly, neither educators nor politicians had ever pondered or planned for such a prospect. Moreover, the highly articulate speech of African Americans who are in the public eye, such as Bryant Gumble, Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice and Oprah Winfrey serve as constant reminders that many blacks have mastered standard English without any benefit of (or apparent need for) special educational programs.
And so, we still do not have one single definition of Ebonics. Few Americans who use the term know the care with which Robert Williams painstakingly described the linguistic plight of enslaved Africans. Of more immediate educational importance, efforts to increase standard English proficiency among American slave descendants of African origin have never been fully addressed. Yet, I know of no fair-minded U.S. citizen who would claim that black students are any different from other American students who are far more likely to succeed if they can be helped to obtain greater standard English fluency.
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African American English Index
Suggested Reading/Additional Resources
Coalition on Language Diversity in Education Proceedings of the Coalition’s 1998 conference: Language Diversity and Academic Achievement in the Education of African American Students.
Stanford University Ebonics Page Links to writings by scholar John Rickford, as well as many useful links
Ebonics and Linguistic Science: Clarifying the Issues Walt Wolfram lays out some of the arguments surrounding the controversy
Ebonics, Math Scores, and the Way Children Learn by Richard "Doc" Rioux - “No matter how I've tried to understand the logic of declaring Ebonics a language, I can't escape the view that the effort is demeaning to American children of African descent”
Double Standards Geoffrey Nunberg discusses press coverage of the Oakland controversy and linguists' reactions.
Baugh, John. Beyond Ebonics: Linguistic Pride and Racial Prejudice. Oxford University Press, 2000.
Blackshire-Belay, Carol. “The Location of Ebonics within the Framework of the Africological Paradigm.” Journal of Black Studies, 27 (no. 1) (1996): 5-23.
Linguistic Society of America. “Resolution on the Oakland ‘Ebonics’ Issue.” Washington, D.C.: Linguistic Society of America, 1997.
Smith, Ernie. “What Is Black English, What is Ebonics?” The Real Ebonics Debate: Power, Language and the Education of African American Children. Eds.Theresa Perry and Lisa Delpit. Boston: Beacon Press, 1997. 49-58
Toliver-Weddington, Gloria. “Ebonics (Black English): Implications for Education.” Journal of Black Studies 9 (no. 4) [special issue] (1979).
Williams, Robert. Ebonics: The True Language of Black Folks. St. Louis: Robert Williams and Associates, 1975.
Back to Top John Baugh joined Stanford University as Professor of Education and Linguistics in 1990. Prior to his tenure at Stanford, Dr. Baugh served as Associate Professor of Linguistics and Foreign Language Education at the University of Texas at Austin and as Assistant Professor of Linguistics, Black Studies, Sociology, and Anthropology at Swarthmore College. Dr. Baugh has published extensively in the fields of Anthropology, Education, Legal Affairs, Linguistics, Sociology and Urban Studies. His work bridges theoretical and applied linguistics, with particular attention to matters of policy and social equity in the fields of education, medicine, and the law. He has conducted extensive research regarding the social stratification of linguistic diversity within the U.S., Austria, Brazil, Hungary, South Africa, and the UK, and is actively engaged in ongoing research that examines the evolution and dissemination of English and other European languages in post-colonial contexts throughout the world. Dr. Baugh is a past president of the American Dialect Society and a member of the usage advisory committee for the American Heritage English Dictionary. He has also served as consultant on several documentary films related to American language and as an expert witness in court cases where matters of voice recognition and language attitudes have been central. Dr. Baugh received his B.A. in Speech and Rhetoric at Temple University and his M.A. and Ph.D. in Linguistics at the University of Pennsylvania. He currently sits on the Boards of the Consortiuum of Social Science Associations, Eastside Prep, Raising a Reader, and Project Pericles.
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Managing Language in a Multicultural Nation
In a global economy, the need to nurture, cultivate and manage multilingual resources within the United States is more pronounced than ever. John Baugh explains why.
Although American English, in all its diversity, is unquestionably our dominant national language, this country has always had a complex multilingual history. Long before European settlers colonized North and South America, thousands of indigenous languages thrived from coast to coast. As colonists and slaves populated the area, multilingualism in America increased — albeit under the growing domination of provincial American English dialects. And with each new wave of immigrants from every conceivable point on the globe, the linguistic and cultural diversity of the United States has continued to grow.
Given the demands of the birth of the American nation, language planning tended to be neglected. As a result, the political and economic clout of the early English settlers in the original 13 colonies established a sociolinguistic hierarchy that still prevails.
Linguistics helps us to understand our polygot nation
Today, the academic endeavor called linguistics helps us to understand our polyglot nation. Scholars who study applied linguistics, anthropological linguistics, educational linguistics, historical linguistics, dialectology, sociolinguistics and more, have contributed to our understanding of multilingual America.
Although many citizens are deeply committed to the role played by American English as our pre-eminent national language, we should never lose sight of the fact that this nation of immigrants continually experiences ever-changing linguistic tides as new residents yearn to share the American dream. A dream that often exceeds their English fluency.
The European nations that colonized the Americas left indelible linguistic impressions on their former colonies (including many African countries, Australia, India and parts of Asia). Today, the global spread of the English era owes much of its vibrancy to the economic and technological advantages gained by the U.S. after World War II. Since that time, educators and politicians in nearly every other industrialized country have devoted considerable resources to the teaching of English — in striking contrast to how the vast majority of American schools have reduced or eliminated foreign-language educations as extraneous, if not superfluous.
Today, given the global economy, the need to nurture, cultivate and even manage multilingual resources within America is more pronounced than ever. Some of this linguistic management is being addressed by market forces, as advertisers and broadcasters strive to appeal to the ever growing numbers of non-English speakers who as U.S. residents and citizens are increasingly important consumers of goods and services. Politicians have been keen to learn new languages to demonstrate their empathy for non-English speaking voters. Some employers, including many multinational corporations, have begun to recognize the value of linguistic diversity among their employees; service businesses in particular place great value upon the prospect of hiring bilingual or trilingual workers. Diplomats and military strategists have always recognized the importance of knowing other languages, but rarely have they managed linguistic resources adequately.
The consequences of strategic linguistic mis-management have been devastating. For instance, firefighters, ambulance drivers, and hospital workers across the United States bemoan the fact that many human tragedies could be averted or diminished if it weren’t for communication gaps between those in need of emergency services (who frequently do not speak English) and first responders who lack ready access to vital linguistic translation.
Unfortunately the work of linguists is often overlooked when it comes to managing linguistic diversity in this nation of immigrants. Taking full advantage of America’s tremendous multilingual resources should not be neglected; by doing so we are truly shortsighted. Sociolinguists can play an important role in building a national linguistic infrastructure that can enhance our prospects for multilingual communication along with our well-being.
Managing Language, from Lab to Label
Under some circumstances, such as the teaching of reading or foreign languages in schools, linguistic management is explicit and controlled by a formal authority figure, such as a teacher. Under other circumstances, such as when immigrants from the same place cluster in the same neighborhood, language management may be an organic by-product of circumstances that are not explicitly or externally controlled. Linguists who study the forms of language management in schools, businesses and society at large can explore these different facets of human language and linguistic interaction.
Linguists investigate their topic in a variety of ways, depending on the question at hand. Theoretical linguists may be interested in varied cognitive and developmental questions pertaining to the speed and accuracy with which children learn one or more languages, whereas sociolinguists are likely to be concerned about the circumstances under which people encounter the various languages that they either acquire or learn.
(Linguists make an essential distinction between natural language acquisition, which takes place after birth without the aid for formal linguistic instruction, and language learning, which typically results from formal language instruction; it does not result from the same natural language acquisition processes that give rise to the first languages that children adopt natively.)
Linguistic analyses can be qualitative or quantitative
Some language research lends itself to precise quantitative analyses that can often be validated in controlled experiments. Other linguistic analyses are qualitative; a linguist may observe and/or record the relevant evidence with little or no effort to control the language behaviors under study.
These general methods of observation are used not only in linguistic inquiry, but throughout the social sciences. However, when viewed in terms of their relevance to real-world multilingual management, they take on a slightly different tenor. One can easily imagine that corporations selling to international markets need to hire people who have the linguistic and cultural knowledge to effectively communicate within the organization while simultaneously possessing the skills to advance sales and advertising in the desired foreign market. In many instances, a global corporation may strive to develop a targeted advertising campaign that does not call undue attention to the fact that the product in question is imported; this can only be done with skillful linguistic management.
American consumers are familiar with this trend, as when products made in China or Germany are marketed in the United States under labels that masquerade as home-grown commodities. The inverse is also true; domestic U.S. products are given foreign names to imply exotic origins. The controversy over whether it is permissible to label any sparkling wine “champagne” if it doesn’t come from France’s Champagne region further illustrates the significance of language management in the global marketplace.
Non-U.S. consumers are often treated to similar experiences when products developed in the United States are repackaged to appeal to local consumers in distant lands. At first blush, these kinds of business issues would seem to be the obvious province of economists, executives or international bankers, but they demand acute linguistic attention if they are going to succeed. Businesses that ignore the importance of linguistic details are much less likely to win customers — and could make embarrassing gaffes.
Linguistics: An Artful Science
Linguistic analyses can be used for everything from instruction to national security
International trade, diplomacy, tourism, education and many other endeavors demand explicit linguistic attention. Linguists use a variety of procedures to explore these and other language-related topics. Some studies are devoted to minute linguistic details, such as pronunciation. Using controlled and natural recordings of the languages or dialects, linguists can measure with precision how phrases, words, or particular sounds (e.g. vowels, consonants, or diphthongs) are pronounced by speakers from different groups. These analyses can be used for everything from instruction to national security, because they can even alert experts to possible threats posed by speakers of designated languages or dialects. Psychologists who study anger management often benefit from sensitivity to linguistic circumstances — and the knowledge that what may sound like an angry diatribe in one language may sound simply like aggravated speech in another.
Some linguistic principles are sacrosanct, not disputed among reputable linguists, such as the universality of syntax in human languages, or the developmental stages of primary language acquisition by infants. Even so, professional proclivities and honest differences of opinion have produced a broad array of methods that are more-or-less well suited to studies of language management. What’s more, different lines of inquiry look for answers that rest in different types of evidence. As a result, linguistics is perpetually and intellectually, rather eclectic, with scholars differing in their methods and opinions — occasionally in public, as when two linguists are expert witnesses in opposite sides of a trial.
The ultimate test of the scientific validity of expert analyses depends, in large measure, on having results that can be reproduced. However, precise replication is difficult (if not impossible) under circumstances in which the critical evidence is beyond the control of the researcher. Be that as it may, we can make every effort to recreate the conditions under which scientific analyses are conducted, including times when language planning and linguistic management are central.
Language planners are people who strive to engineer linguistic circumstances and chart the future course of linguistic events. By contrast, those who seek to manage languages may be less concerned with manipulating linguistic behavior — if they want to do it at all. They are primarily interested in understanding the linguistic complexity of situations or institutions that fall under their guidance or leadership.Multinational corporations, diplomats, military leaders, and entrepreneurs who serve clients from diverse backgrounds exemplify the vast array of social circumstances where effective language planning and linguistic management are vital assets.
Many people harbor strong feelings about language and have corresponding ideologies about how they use and speak their language, but linguists have to stay impartial. It falls to us to provide precise accounts of how people use language day to day — and, in so doing, to advance our knowledge of language use in all of humankind.
Suggested Reading/Additional Resources
Chaika, Elaine. Language: The Social Mirror. 3rd ed. Boston: Heinle & Heinle, 1994.
Coulmas, Florian, ed. The Handbook of Sociolinguistics. Oxford: Blackwell, 1997.
Macaulay, Ronald K. S. The Social Art: Language and Its Uses. New York: Oxford U. Press, 1994.
John Baugh joined Stanford University as Professor of Education and Linguistics in 1990. Prior to his tenure at Stanford, Dr. Baugh served as Associate Professor of Linguistics and Foreign Language Education at the University of Texas at Austin and as Assistant Professor of Linguistics, Black Studies, Sociology, and Anthropology at Swarthmore College. Dr. Baugh has published extensively in the fields of Anthropology, Education, Legal Affairs, Linguistics, Sociology and Urban Studies. His work bridges theoretical and applied linguistics, with particular attention to matters of policy and social equity in the fields of education, medicine, and the law. He has conducted extensive research regarding the social stratification of linguistic diversity within the U.S., Austria, Brazil, Hungary, South Africa, and the UK, and is actively engaged in ongoing research that examines the evolution and dissemination of English and other European languages in post-colonial contexts throughout the world. Dr. Baugh is a past president of the American Dialect Society and a member of the usage advisory committee for the American Heritage English Dictionary. He has also served as consultant on several documentary films related to American language and as an expert witness in court cases where matters of voice recognition and language attitudes have been central. Dr. Baugh received his B.A. in Speech and Rhetoric at Temple University and his M.A. and Ph.D. in Linguistics at the University of Pennsylvania. He currently sits on the Boards of the Consortiuum of Social Science Associations, Eastside Prep, Raising a Reader, and Project Pericles.
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